


Carnal Catharsis

by EternalMuse



Category: DRAMAtical Murder - All Media Types
Genre: C/NC, M/M, Other, S/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-18 22:10:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5944984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternalMuse/pseuds/EternalMuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Theo learns that Hersha is aware of Aoba's whereabouts. Will his attempt to free him release something unintended? Or, will he fail to pass the test that his sadistic host challenges him with?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Engaging a Contract

It was the soft scratch of rubber against tarmac which peeled open the eyes of the one who had been waiting to hear it. Trip and Virus were down the hall to the left, behind a closed door with a broken lock. If either of them were aware of it, they didn’t seem to invest much concern, because such details never preoccupied their minds once the lights dimmed and the leather began to breathe. After two thirty in the morning Hersha and Welter could resign themselves to sleeping without much worry about being disrupted for “social events.” Tonight was such a night that if he were to be disrupted, he wouldn’t be available to entertain their toy. He had a date of his own, and although Welter was something of a brother to him, he most certainly wasn’t going to share.

 

“What,” the rumbling voice had asked him when he had passed the living room. No matter how quietly Hersha tried to maneuver, the damn male had ears like a fox, and he always had a way of knowing when something was about to happen. Hersha graced him with an annoyed look.

 

“Go back to sleep.” This didn’t produce the intended effect. Rather, Welter sat up from the couch where he had been lounging, dark tresses falling onto his shoulders as his steel-toed boots hit the floor.

 

“What has you so full of piss and vinegar so early at night?” It wasn’t so much of a question now, but a demand. ‘Tell me,’ the tone provoked, ‘Or I’ll rat you out.’ Hersha didn’t like it, but he didn’t do much to fix it, and instead merely continued to the back door. “Where are you going?” The acute question struck the air with such boldness that when it didn’t receive an answer, it became questionable if it had even been asked at all. He left it hanging there, and he proceeded through the darkness to the back door of their mainland retreat.

 

Hersha didn’t need lights to see where he was going. Blindfolded, he could still find his way through by hearing the sounds, inhaling the smells, and by embracing the textures underneath his fingertips. The origin of the sound which woke him from his nap stood there at the gate, pale fingers woven into the dark iron lattice with a wash of hopefulness and apprehension frothing in his eyes. The moonlight spotlighted him, but even if the skies were dark otherwise, Hersha would have picked him out by the angelic glow that his pale skin exhibited against the unyielding cloak of the night. His lips glistened like silver as Hersha met him there with raking eyes that devoured every peak and valley of the curves of the foreigner’s appearance.

 

“Good evening!” The youth was the first to speak. Hersha smirked with wickedness, and felt his nostrils constrict. The gun had fired: the evening truly had begun, and it was going to drip with deliciousness before dawn.

 

“Good evening,” he mused, swaying the tilt of his head from one direction to the other. A ghastly snake of air escaped his mouth when he did so, though it evaporated quickly due to the chill of the cold intentions on his tongue. “You’re early.”

 

“Is it okay?” The German accent chapped immediately through the iron with eagerness, procuring a fiddle of joy to chord within the host.

 

“It’s fine.” The gate was heavy, but quiet when he released the lock and opened the path that he’d require the boy to traverse, “I’m sure you’re excited to see him, that friend of your brother’s. Does Wilhelm know that you’re here?” The teen shook his head furiously. That’s right, it was meant to be a surprise, wasn’t it? “So you intend to surprise him when you bring him back to Midorijima?”

 

He wouldn’t be bringing him anywhere.

 

A brilliant smile erupted from Theodore’s lips as he passed through the threshold, and the gate was made secure once again behind him. “Exactly. He’s been down. I think it’ll be good for him to meet again. He was the only friend that Wilhelm mentioned, so he must mean a lot to him, and I think he’ll be happy to know he was found!”

 

Found… _Right._ Aoba had never been _lost_. Rather, he only wished that he could have been. Hersha nodded cordially, and directed the boy to the rear of the home. “You understand,” he explained, “Everybody is sleeping, and so it’d be best to go in through the cellar quietly.” A stark lie. His forked tongue wasn’t a novice to them, but manipulation was a tactic that he and Theo weren’t abashed to use in their own way. Hersha didn’t understand Theo’s power, but he knew that he possessed it. There was a purity that saturated every fleck of light from the halo of gold which grew from his crown; it was the likes of something which the sinister male had never seen before. Here, tonight, he had to know that he was offering himself to the spawn of evil’s union, and yet here he was, claiming that it was out of the interest for a love that he wasn’t even a party of. What defense did he think that he had against his host’s evil disposition? Hersha would tear it from his bones, and destroy the light which forged within him.

 

The doors to the cellar came into sight: dark, heavy wooden panes which rested against a concrete drop in the earth. They moved soundlessly as Hersha lifted them, which visibly startled his companion by the way he flinched at the hasty grip with which he seized them. It earned him a warm, affectionate chortle: if Theo was already jumping at a lack of noise, then Hersha questioned if he’d have a strong enough heart for what he’d be hearing that evening.

 

The stairs that stretched below weren’t many in number, and were fairly well illuminated due to a dim red glow which reached them from somewhere in the interior. “Lock it,” Hersha instructed, turning the boy by placing a hand on the small of his back and applying gentle pressure until the visage of a crucifix shaped skeleton key hanging on a fine 14” chain became recognized. Theo, without tossing a single glance over his shoulder in question, snatched the chain from the hook and did the deed. He turned and went to hang it where he had found it, but Hersha stilled him with a strong grasp to the forearm. “Listen carefully.

 

“This place is very special.” Theo’s brows furrowed with intrigue before Hersha continued, posing a gentle pout of the lips unconsciously, “It’s much more than what you might think it is initially. It can be therapeutic. I’m not certain that Aoba will want to leave, and I’m not convinced that it will be so easy to let him go without a replacement.” He paused, the two holding their position while pale eyes searched him for clues. He felt them probing his expression, his position, and even the dilation of his pupils. Yet, there wasn’t a lie to be found there, only red hue from the den of the cellar. Theo’s muscles became tense.

 

“What do you mean?” Ah, the sweet bounce of his honest accent was invigorating.

 

Hersha’s grip loosened on his forearm and dropped under his hand, signifying that the key should be passed to him. “If you want to learn what I mean, you have to risk yourself in a way that most people will consider it to be a sacrifice. But, I can promise you that if you embrace it, you’ll find yourself living more freely here than you could ever imagine. If you trust me to show you the value in that sacrifice, and if you want to see your brother’s friend again, give me the key to this door.” The chain began to pool in his hand as Theo’s choice occurred without consideration, though Hersha continued to speak. “You won’t leave this cellar without this key.” Its weight settled in his hand, and Theo retreated his arm.

 

“Don’t vorry,” he offered in a sweetly loving tone. Hersha’s fingertips wrung the key, and he draped it over his neck, “I’m not.” In their own pervasive way, Hersha sensed that they held another meaning that he couldn’t quite perceive. Did he think he was misleading him? A frown seized his expression, and the cordiality shed from his disposition. Was this simply a glimpse into that power of purity and forgiveness? Theo's innocence silenced him, and stole the words from his throat before the air with which to speak them had been pried from his lungs. This man. This boy. He was incredible. Hersha felt as if he had met his match, and fixated on the heavenly ease of tranquility beneath that red dying hue that revealed his features. He didn’t trust it. He never trusted what he didn’t understand.

 

“You will change your mind,” the allmate informed quite plainly, draping the crucifix over his neck and wearing the key as a necklace. “And when you do, you can cry for ‘asylum,’ for mercy.”


	2. The Code of Red Part I

The texture which had felt so delicately smooth at first brush possessed a sort of magic that bit rings of raw tenderness into his wrists. He never noticed when it happened, but after the struggle, the buckle, and the thrash had ended, the leather cuffs chafed the thin wrist joint to inflammation, and he knew that his skin would wear these bracelets of pain for a duration after he would be released—if he would be released. His mind wasn’t there. It wasn’t on the tears that stained his blindfold, or the kind tickle of his golden locks against the dark wall. It was on the grounding flavor of the wooden bar that his lips kissed on the St. Andrew’s Cross, the heat of his breath as it bounced back to his collarbone, and the shrill way that his whimpers seemed to echo directly back into the pits of his ears.

The air rang with a thin wisp in the likeness of bristling leaves, and ended with a lightening clap. Theo gasped, immediately thereafter releasing the wounded plea which chased it. His rear cheeks were already sensitive. They were blemished, he could tell by the sting, and although each impact hit him subtly, the bubbling and electrifying pain that bloomed from the spot conjured a sharp impulse of his hips to jerk away from the object and grind his genitals into the crevice where the cross boards were nailed. There wasn’t any escape for him here. His wrists were spread far and apart above his head on the cross, and his feet balanced on their front pads, slipping and sliding around on the cooled hot wax that had previously dribbled over it them with each fully body writhe. Although the caning was directed against his rear, the position he held implied so much strain on his calves that those muscles felt as stiff as stainless steel, and ached as if it was shriveling beneath the flesh. Despite the cold air that filled the room, his entire body burned, from inside out, and though he knew how to make it all end with that single word, he refused, and called out others in its place.

“Eight,” he managed through staggered breaths. Immediately he was struck again.

“Speak up! No point if I can’t hear you. _German_. Let’s go!”

“Nei—!”

“Backwards.” Crack! Again the pain bled through his nerves, creeping up through his lower back and extending down into his thighs like roots seeking soil.

“Ach—”

“Faster.” Crack! He couldn’t imagine what he looked like in this red candle light. He couldn’t imagine anything. His eyes blinded, there was nothing to focus on but the pain and the challenge of the count.

“Siebe—” Crack! Slowly, but surely, a change was beginning to take place in him. Some might have defined it as a nirvana, but the state was certainly other than the one which he operated in. “Ghh—“ he protested, mouth slackening amidst the new experience of his body’s natural reaction to intense and prolonged delivery of hurt. The world diluted itself, and his skin prickled as his mind began to sink into the depths of the serotonin, enabling him to nearly miss Hersha’s next demand.

“ _English_.” Theo’s eyes fluttered behind the mask. Did he say English? Sure, he did know English, but he wasn’t very good at it, and it had been a while. This game—the one where he had to count the strokes backwards and forward seemed incessant. The German hadn’t been so bad to start with, but his host had already upped the ante by introducing Japanese into it, and he would never forget the way his frustrated heart had sunken when his numbers had twice reversed. There was no way to know when Hersha would have his fill with it, and Theo had a gut feeling that this wasn’t the only game he would be playing tonight. Ah, wait – what was he doing again? His tormentor wasn’t easily pleased, and true to his judgement, his train of thought was interrupted by a slap of the cane in an area temptingly more intimate. His body shook against the cross, and he felt his wrists jerk in their holds once again. “ _Now_ , boy!” Oh, English. What was his number? How did he say it? He nearly slurred it as he fought against the chemical high, but managed to select his vocabulary.

“Fi—Augh!” A strong hold had jerked the roots of his hair backward. The chain at his neck snapped taught as his body was made to bend, but the terrifying notion that clasped him so thoroughly was how he would balance upon his toes. Earlier, an hour or so before the start of this game, Hersha had informed him that if he caught his heels touching the ground without explicit direction to do so, that they would lose their ability to support him for the several days that followed. They pandered, sweeping and tilting, easing dangerously close to actually touching the floor, though the blond would never know how close they had actually come.

“Wrong.” The cold voice chilled him as thoroughly as if liquid nitrogen had been injected into his veins. He swallowed and exhaled with trepidation, awaiting the punishment that would be swiftly delivered as all of the others had been. Instead, a single order followed the brief silence; “Plead asylum.”

His mouth ran dry. He couldn’t give in. His shoulders trembled, and his throat grew tighter the longer that Hersha gingerly held him in this way, expectantly waiting in unforgiving silence. He could feel the coarseness of his hand against is over-sensitized skin, and the demand of the clutch of his fingers hold steady at his roots while he patiently waited for the word to pour. It was not in the overwhelming pain, but in the exhibition of this peculiar empathy, this unique kind of consideration, this bittersweet offering of salvation; that the protective shell of Theo’s heart ruptured, and memories of his brother bled down his cheeks in a heated ocean froth of tears.

That the choice belonged to him to yield to the demand was illusionary. He had been yielding all night to the pain. He’d bowed to the torrent that Hersha had unleashed on him, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t what Hersha wanted from him. It wasn’t what he wanted for himself. Hersha was testing him, wasn’t he? He was his judge, but whatever punishment he bestowed, Theo didn’t consider it adequate in comparison to his crimes.

It was his brother; it was always his brother. His brother, Wilhelm. He would sell his soul to Hell itself for his brother’s happiness, and he would do it a thousand times if he only had the opportunity to do so, especially for the hand that he had played in the way that fate had orchestrated their futures.

“I…. wont….” Heavy heaving gasps broke through his teeth, and he gradually realized that something was changing in Hersha as well. He was waiting, still. What was he feeling? What was he thinking right now? His hands held his body steady until a hard rod grazed his upper arm and in a moment, the blindfold was removed.

Immediately the red candlelight of the dungeon embraced him, and he realized, by looking at the sinister reflection of his broken form in Hersha’s eyes, that it appeared that rivers of blood flowed over his cheeks, down his chest, and god only knew what the rest of his skin looked like. Hersha looked grumpy. His lips were taught into a strained curl, and even at the angle that Theo’s head was jerked at, he could recognize the tenseness in his host’s jaw.

“Please,” the foreigner begged, his lids closing upon one another and lashes blotting some of his emotions from his eyes. “Don’t stop.” Hersha received the information without indication, though after a moment did allow a smirk to peel over his tense countenance.

“You pious bitch,” he provoked, releasing his grip and bending the cane between his fingertips. “All of this just to free your brother’s boyfriend. What about you? I can see how badly you want to say it. Just…” the cane began to trace the inner parts of his legs gingerly, “Just say it. It’s only one word. I’ll do it for you if you want.” Theo’s head slapped the wall, lips once again gluing against the flat, moist bar to which he had whispered his secrets. “Ah.” Hersha was continuing his taunt, though surprised Theo with a slender slip of his hand against his lower abdomen. It drew the syllables out as he spoke them: “Sa-I-Li-Mu?” Still, the boy said nothing, but hung his head against the cross. “No? Still no? All right. Don’t say it. Don’t say a thing.”

A cruel twist of the root of his hair dropped his jaw wide enough for a spherical object to be pressed into it, the likes of which was thereafter secured tightly behind Theo’s head. A gag. It sat between his teeth and pinned his tongue behind it, which didn’t so much as prevent the noises from procuring from the throat as much as it prevented him from saying anything discernible. Hersha’s voice rumbled luxuriously over his shoulder; “I’ve made you scream. But, you’ve since lost your privilege to do so with that little language fuck up back then.” Theo hung his head and felt his nails scrape around his palms. He was ready for this. Whatever it would be, he would endure it. Where would the pain meet him? His rear? His thighs? His back? Wherever it would be, he was determined. He would endure it as he had endured its predecessor, and he would embrace the pain in a way that his brother was unable to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued with Part II


	3. The Code of Red Part II

Coupled with the dancing red glow from the crimson lit candles, this night seemed as if it were taking place in some other reality. The angel before him was drawn gracefully upright with pure creamy limbs, those of which seemed to only beckon and draw an onlooker’s eyes to the black cuffs and horizontal stripes blooming on his vulnerable form. His skin was warm to the touch, and alive as the muscle beneath it danced and twitched under his fingertips. Hersha’s attentions varied from the act of dealing pain to the careful assessment of the areas that received it in languishing gentle brushes that likely only added to the complex array of emotions that broiled with his guest’s foggy, foggy mind.

Despite himself, Theo seemed to be calmer now that the gag was secured within his locks. His breath had steadied around it, and his heart seemed to have found a preferred pace. Much to Hersha’s pleasure, the only thing that the gag prevented was the formation of discernible words. It didn’t do a thing to silence the muffled and uncontrollable groans that dribbled from around the sphere, though the knowledge of this seemed to be some small part of what soothed the other male. He couldn’t speak. He was relieved from having to articulate what he felt, relieved from having to pretend to protest, and unbeknownst to Hersha, relieved from the struggle of wanting to give up. Piece by piece, Hersha was wedging his mind from his motor function, and caught glimpse upon glimmer at the Theo which hid from the rest of the world. Still, it wasn’t everything. There had been, without doubt, some sort of protective veil which the foreigner wore to hide his true nature from others. In others, this veil was called “Dignity,” but Hersha had already violently stricken it from him at his first demand for the foreigner to strip. Generally, at this point most people became pliable, and revealed their true vulnerable disposition to him. Spirits were often possessed by one or two characteristics, whether it was greed, lust, some other sin, lack thereof, or some combination of the aforementioned. Theo, however, didn’t seem follow the norm. He seemed a great deal humbler in his disposition from square one, and it was perhaps in this way that he was able to bend as a blade of grass might against a hurricane. Yes, in this way, Theo was a great deal stronger than he had given him credit for. Where was his darkness? Where was his shame?

It roused him. His compulsion to destroy, ruin, and demolish only grew with the challenge he faced. The more that Theo yielded, the more desperate Hersha became. He wouldn’t break, but he flexed. He trembled, he sobbed, he gave in, but it wasn’t weakness. He resisted him spiritually, and barred entry to the inner darkness which every person locked away. It was nearly as if with every crack of his exterior shell that more of his pure light leaked from his core, and the more blinded by it Hersha became, the more he wanted to be the sole possessor of it.

With the cane now resting peacefully against the wall at an angle with the beads of sweat dribbling down it as if it were gentle morning dew, Hersha returned his attention and affection to the target of such use by the instrument. His hands roamed freely and without abandon now, coveting the sensitive skin that blanketed his Adam’s apple with a teasing squeeze, caressing the exterior of his abdominal, and scooping into the depths of his groin. His digits uncurled past the staff which seemed startled to respond, and gave the sac beneath commanding attention. “You’re such a curious, perverse, little thing…” Hersha heard his tone bless to the tune of a genuine groan vibrating against the wall. “Have you not realized yet that I now own your dignity?”

Theodore choked a reply that consisted of tepid shuddering and a brief hiccup of a sound which he was unable to swallow. Hersha’s lips curled with pleasure, but he couldn’t manage a pleased chortle or snicker in the slightest. Why wouldn’t he break? He looked so fragile strung there as he was, that Hersha’s own sadistic nature twisted, fully unfurled within him. Suddenly, for the first time, it became questionable to him, and he found himself to hesitate with self awareness. 

What was he doing here with Theo? What did he really hope to achieve from this? His grip tightened, and his victim whined, but the pleasure of it was eroding. It slipped through his gaze like sands in the hourglass. Somehow, he realized with an absorbing fear, Theo was beginning to break him down.

Sapphire eyes snapped upward, sweeping up his back and for a final rest on the curve of his ear. 

“Fuck,” he cursed, the terminology straining through gritted teeth. Did he know? Was Theo aware of what he was doing to him? Hersha, in all of his darkness, felt guilt for his attempt to destroy his innocence. He swallowed, feeling an icy, fear begin to raise the hairs on his arms. It came from a place that couldn’t be sourced, but the male knew somehow that it must have originated from his guest. It must have. He had never been swayed this way with anybody else before, nay even Virus, and yet, somehow, this simple boy... He enlivened him. He impacted him. He made him simultaneously feel that he was both the most sinister and cruelly despotic demonic overlord, and a small, insignificant peon that couldn’t cast a blink of darkness upon the brightest of days.

“Fuck.” The phrase plucked from him again as the humbled paranoia waged its wrath against his unwavering confidence. Theo raised his head from its humble arch, and attempted to recognize whatever was influencing Hersha. He was unsuccessful. Hersha didn’t want him to look at him. He wanted his submission, and he wanted his obedience. With a world suddenly flipped on its head, his tactics seemed to mirror the event.

“What’s wrong, angel?” he questioned sarcastically, mimicking a sweetness between lovers that was a little too perfect to have not realistically have signified a true interest by the speaker. Indeed, Hersha wasn’t mocking Theo, but his own condition. “Miss my attention already?” He allowed his lips to kiss the words into Theo’s neck. The foreigner exhaled around the gag and relaxed his stance on his toes, which inadvertently caused Hersha’s hands to move to his staff and worked to reminded the boy not to drop his heels, even now. “Don’t worry,” he whispered into the curve of his hear. It was so soft that Hersha could only imagine the challenge that the blond encountered trying to decipher what language he was using amidst the serotonin which clearly had carried him to a whole new consciousness. ‘Sub space’ it was called. Not everyone could reach it, but those who did felt a diminished capacity for pain, and a slower response time for actual injury. That was fine. The period for pain was over. Hersha was losing control over his objective decision making. He couldn’t trust himself to do it without emotion any further, and so he didn’t trust himself to do it at all. The cane stayed at their side then, silent and forgotten.

The hour passed. It dawned over them like waves upon the ocean, taking, giving, and taking again until Theo’s body slackened in his grip, and the wall dripped with his organic cream. And yet, regardless of what the hour expected from them both, Hersha still wasn't entirely through with the boy. He wouldn't be. He couldn't be. At some point throughout the night, which may have very well been the moment when he released the blond from his bindings, he had also freed his final ace from his sleeve. There was nothing left. He needed to think. 

The gag was discarded somewhat carelessly behind them when he had wrapped the boy in a wool blanket, and had hoisted him into two fatigued arms. If his own muscles were in such a sorry state, he could only anticipate the numbness which shielded his guest from the pain that trembled him in his hold. Or, could it be that he was shivering? The fall from his natural high could also cause a fair tremble or two, but there wasn't much of a way to tell until after it had passed. 

“Sh-Sh.” The hush broke from his lips with a rapid stutter at the top of the basement stairs. Sapphire eyes scanned the room. Theo, obliging, might have recognized that he was searching for his brother’s whereabouts of not for the exhausted nuzzle that he gave into Hersha’s shoulder. It was clear that he didn't care where they were going, and truthfully he didn't want Hersha to carry him in this way, but his arms were too dead for him to raise them much higher than his collarbone. Thankfully, Hersha hadn't solicited his opinion on the matter. He rather had released him, caught him, and wrapped him into this cocoon without much further direction. It could be that he was moving him to see Aoba, finally. It might have been to the next stage of his trial, or it could have been a dumpster. Theodore didn't care. He was thankful for the kind gesture that he received, and absorbed his body heat through the blanket like a cat in sunlight. 

When deemed safe to cross the threshold of the hall, Hersha did exactly that, and managed his way to the bathroom where a tub steamed in wait. Without warning or comment otherwise, he bent at the waist and set his foreigner into it, blanket and all.

“Wwhuu—!” Theo’s eyes snapped alert, and he quickly braced himself on the tub’s rim, peeling the blanket from his skin incidentally in the process. It didn't cling, but it did give him easier traction. A quiet movement at the rim turned his head to view Hersha as he knelt down beside him. There was nothing to do but smile ever faintly. Hersha looked upset. Why? Shouldn't he, Theodore, be the miserable one? Though truthfully, he was beginning to feel pampered. The bath water was clear, clean, and warm, and it reassured him that somehow the male hadn't broken skin. After all of it, it was merely the exotic candles and sweat which made his skin bead with ruby. Oh, but that distant look of Hersha’s…

“What’s wrong?” Eyes rose to Theo’s as Hersha’s chin met the hand that rested on the rim, and so his guest’s question was answered with a soft questioning grunt. He could feel his brows slamming down over his eyes, but only halfheartedly so since he was without the true willpower to keep his strong-confidence façade up any longer. Such an abrupt realization produced a rather loud and uninvited groan from him. This evening was supposed to be about breaking Theo’s light, not shattering his own darkness. He was entirely clueless as to what had gone wrong, and something certainly had. He felt guilt about what he had done, but guilt wasn’t a normal emotion for him. It was supposed to be playtime for him. It was a chance to let his beautiful inner demons breathe the perverse air. He had long since accepted himself to be a force of darkness, so this moment of self-consciousness was absolutely surreal. His knuckle scratched his eye as he rested there under the foreigners perking gaze.  
“What do you mean.” It sounded like a statement, but Theo knew better.

“Well, you look a little down.” 

The host bit his tongue while a bristling prickle of heat began to crawl up his neck and dust the tips of his ears. How embarrassing. How absolutely and completely embarrassing. It was bad enough to have felt this way, unstable, unsure, and incapable, but it was another to be recognized for being that way. His teeth clamped against his inner lips. The spotlight of Theo’s attention only heated his cheeks further, and the aversion of his eyes didn’t do much to avert Theodore’s.

Theo didn't seem to mind, or, maybe he didn’t notice, and curled, facing Hersha a bit more properly. The heat rising from the water soothing. He was weightless. The serotonin had withered from him, but the lingering sensation of tranquility was pacifying. He couldn't shake the sentiment that Hersha had somehow relieved him of a great burden. His mind couldn’t focus on one thing for very long, and although he recognized that Hersha was uncomfortable, he didn’t want to dwell on it. After the intensity of what they had shared, he imagined that he was the source of that discomfort. As much as it took to accept the pain, he couldn’t imagine what sort of strength it must have required to issue it.

"I wonder," he began voicing something that he had been wondering passively, "If Wilheim feels that high, even if he can't feel the actual blows. I wonder if that's why he used to fight so often. I used to think it was because he didn't know better. I used to think it was because he wanted somebody to stop him. But,” he continued, “no one ever could.” Watching Hersha’s eyes peek up at him broadened his smile. “I'm sorry. That must have been miserable for you to have gone through. You don't even know me, but you did it anyway. You are proof of the goodness in the world, Hersha.”

The male frowned, actually disturbed, and buried his face in his forearm. Had he accidentally pushed Theo too far? Had he been focusing so much on his spirit that he overlooked his mental stamina? Had he already forgotten the speed with which the cane thrashed to him? Sapphire eyes searched the darkness behind his eyelids. Did he not remember the curl of his fingers dig into his hips when he took him? Was the prohibition of complaint such a far off fantasy to Theo now that he was enjoying the comforting bath? It couldn’t have been. Why then did Theo claim that he was he represented the good in the world? Shouldn’t he see him and surmise the opposite? 

“I see that you have no idea what I'm talking about.” His guest’s voice jolted him back to reality.

“…You’re wrong, and I can’t believe that you’re still thinking about your brother,” he admitted gloomily, “This was never about your brother. This was never about Aoba. This was always about you. You, only you.” Much to his surprise, the blond nodded, and the smile, though it did fade, didn’t disappear. “Don’t you get it? I never intended to let you leave.”

“I know.”

“What do you mean you know?” He lifted his nose from his arm, and gripped the porcelain rim, “You had no fucking idea, you’re just so… so goddamn innocent!” He grunted and groaned, raking his hands through his hair. He was coming undone at the seams, fraying at the edges. It seemed that what had been done couldn’t be stopped. He felt what might have been an avalanche of emotions dragging his hands into the water to retrieve boy’s hand. It easily laced with his own, and he brought it to his lips. Even from this angle he could see the inflamed band of red that bore on his wrists like a fresh tattoo. Theodore… he wanted him to belong to him. But more than that, Hersha was beginning to realize, the reason for all of his wavering, and for all of the questioning: he wanted to belong to him as well. 

Theodore was something greater than he. His forgiving nature was complex in a way that was supernaturally godlike. It wasn’t touchable. It was only admirable.

“If you say so, Hersha.” What was that supposed to mean? The host’s eyes bounced to the hands which laced with his. A pressure was increasing there: Theo was squeezing it. It wasn’t hard, or unforgiving. It was gentle, warm, and light. “If you say so. I’ll stay as long as you’ll have me.”

“I think you’ve been in there long enough,” He ultimately decided, wrenching his grasp from Theo’s and pulling to a stand. “Grab a towel. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”


End file.
